Goodbye Google Reader, Hiya Skimr!

Alternatives, Caught My Attention, Internet, Technologies No Responses »

Apr 192013

Everyone already posted about this. Google Reader is closing down and we need an alternative. I’ve read about and tried several alternatives that where recommended on different technology/Internet blogs and websites and I now think that I have made my choice: http://www.skimr.co.

This one was mentioned in lifehacker with very positive feedback. Some of the Google Reader features are missing (unread count for example), but that does not necessarily bother me.

“Skimr Is a Clean Feed Reader that Makes Skimming Headlines a Breeze”

The main advantage is the extremely clean interface that works great, not only on a pc/laptop browser but also on small sized mobile screens. No need to have an app for this one due to this which I think is a big advantage.

The final choice for me was between Newsblur and Skimr, but Newsblur had some minor disadvantages. An android app is needed to view things on the phone (one that on my android 2.3 phone is running very sluggish) and more importantly some of the functionality is linked to a premium account.

I’ve tried both for about a week and I am most happy about Skimr. I’ll stick with that one for now in an attempt to minimise the effect of the passing of Google reader a bit more bearable and will let you know if I change my mind.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Reader, RSS

Leonardo Da Vinci, The Madrid Codices Now Available Online

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Dec 182012

For many of us who like to play with mechanics, robotics, prototyping 3D-Printing and other maker/hacker hobbyists, Leonardo Da Vinci is an inspiring figure that you can use for ideas for projects or just like reading and looking at his impressive technical drawings.

The Spanish National Library Published the Madrid Codices from Leonardo Da Vinci on-line in a very nice interactive format. The topics discussed in these 2 volumes include mechanics, statics, geometry and construction of fortifications among others.

leonardo da vinci

These Manuscripts have been discovered quite recently in 1964 (after being lost for about 150 years), and you can now access them for free on the website of the Spanish National library, http://www.bne.es.

The Interactive format they have used adds some really nice functionality to them. You can mirror the pages (handy because Leonardo Da Vinci used to write mirrored) and adds citations and transcriptions for parts that are unreadable or very hard to read and open animations of some of the designs in action.

Access the codices here: http://leonardo.bne.es/

Technorati Tags: 3D Printing, DIY, Steampunk, Tech

Mining Litecoin with Minecraft

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Dec 102012

On my quest to get some money in Bitcoin, the most established Digital Crypto-Currency, without spending anything I’ve had a look at quite a few options.

I started Mining Bitcoin on CPU, that gave me almost 0 results. After that, I had a look at referral programs and click to earn pages. From there I found Litecoin, a currency with a lot lower value, but aimed at CPU Mining (bitcoins an experiment and Bitcoin, an update). the results are average to bad until Recently.

Recently, because I found, what can be the best way to earn, spend and use the Litecoin currency. If not the best, it is probably by far, the most fun way: A Minecraft Server that uses Litecoins as the in-game Currency of the economic system: http://www.spendlitecoins.com.

On this server, each block has it’s Litecoin value and can be bought, sold at in-game shops or traded with other players. I have not spent a lot of time playing around yet, but I hope that soon, I’ll be able to tell you more on the practical side of things.

Technorati Tags: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Minecraft

BitCoin, an update and LiteCoin, a (relatively) new player and some resources

Alternatives, Technologies 1 Response »

Dec 102012

A while back I posted on my first experiences with Bitcoin. Now, some time later, here’s a small update.

Since the rise of Bitcoin, and its respective increase in difficulty to mine bitcoins, a few other so called “Crypto currencies” have appeared. One of them, I’d say one of the most known, is LiteCoin.

According from the Litecoin website, there are quite a lot of similarities from Bitcoin, but differs in the following characteristics:

Higher Speed when Mining on GPU
Smaller Blocks, resulting in faster Coin Generation

These advantages over Bitcoin result in it’s main downside, a lot less value of each coin as compared to Bitcoin: LTC/BTC 0.00596, making litecoin the eSilver equivalent to Bitcoin’s eGold.

Therefore, depending on the time you have on your hand and the hardware you have available, it’s up to you to decide. At the moment, it looks like Litecoin is a more speculative currency, there is still quite some uncertainty on the values while Bitcoin is getting more and more stable over time.

In my case, since I found that just CPU mining bitcoins did not get me a lot of benefit. I’ve been wasting quite a lot of CPU time (approx 2 weeks) to get approx 0.2 BTC. I’ve tried mining Litecoins for 2 weeks too now, and managed to get approx 4 LTC in two weeks (about 6-8 hours a day). This translates to 0.312 BTC. Quite a bit more profitable. (values on the time of writing)

Looking at a value chart from litecoinpool.org, you can see that the value of both the LTC and the BTC follow a very similar curve:

Litecoin mining works in a similar way as with bitcoins. You can mine solo, or join a pool to gain benefits of working together with multiple people. The results above where obtained while mining on Burnside’s Litecoin Mining pool. To get started, it is as easy as installing the Litecoin Wallet/Client, that as an advantage over Bitcoin, includes a Mining interface that you can use once you place the minerd.exe CPU Miner [Download: Windows/ or Linux] in your Litecoin program folder. The included client works both for solo- or pooled mining.

* Make sure you let your antivirus software know that this is not a trojan. Many antivirus programs pick it up as such.

Here’s listing of some resources that might help you understand the phenomenon and if you are interested, help you on your way.

Bitcoin Resources:

Tools

InstaWallet. Instawallet allows you to set up a temporary wallet to receive bitcoins. You can transfer from there to your wallet. The advantages are that you do not need to publish your wallet address anywhere
BitSpend. Allows you to add bitcoin trading capability to your blog, online shop etc. Pais in BTC, USD and EUR
Bitcoin Monitor. Live Tracker of BTC VAlue
BitCoinTools. Allows you to set-up alerts on value changes on MT.Gox

Value Charts and traders:

BTC-e Exchange

MtGox

Charts on litecoinPool.Org

(Almost) Free Bitcoins:

Free bitcoins might sound great, but unless you have absolutely nothing to do in your life, this won’t make you rich (but then again, what does?) You can participate in various activities that will send you minimal payouts (between 0.00005 and 0.0002 BTC Imagine what it would take to earn a single Bitcoin.

Anyways, it might be a way to get you started to get that first coins with wich you can start a trade.

http://netlookup.se/free-bitcoins/134247 Netlookup actually just gives them away. Enter your wallet address and they’re yours.
freedigitalmoney.com gives you bitcoins for completing simple tasks, like watching a video or playing a game. Do not forget to change the receiving address to your own.
iWantFreeBitCoins.com gives you bitcoins for taking offers.
freebitcoins.org gives you bitcoins for various simple tasks, mostly filling out surveys.
Earn the Bitcoin will give you 0.01 BTC just for signing up. You can earn more by completing free offers.
Rugatu is a Q&A community where you can earn BTC by anwering questions and doing simple tasks.
CoinWorker will pay you for doing online “work”, like categorizing twitter users.
the Bitcoin Faucet will give you 0.005 BTC, but only once.

Be aware that some of these links contain Referral ID’s that help me earn some mBTC’s.

I’m really enjoying this “treasure hunt” in the Virtual Currency world, and will keep this post updated with my findings.

Finally, I’d like to invite you to sign a petition for the inclusion of the Bitcoin curreny symbol in the ISO 4217 Standard

Technorati Tags: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Net Neutrality, Virtual Currency

Disney’s Interactive Plant Technology

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Oct 232012

A while back I came across the site of Disney Research and was surprised about the amount and kind of projects they had ongoing. I really did not expect a lot more than investigations and projects around audience interaction or Disneyland rides. I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled on the page of Disney’s Interactive Plant Technology.

One of them is around investigating the way a plant can be used to interact with a computer. This might sound slightly confusing, but you only have to look at the embedded video to understand what I’m on about.

Visualizing the energy that a plant emits is, aside from beautiful, a great way to see how a plant or a flower interact with its environment. Especially when the method used is not invasive and does not damage the plant (it would be different if the energy would flow in the opposite direction).

I was expecting an informative note at the end of this video. Something along the lines of “No Plants where hurt during the recording of this video”.

More information on http://www.disneyresearch.com/research/projects/hci_botanicus_drp.htm

Technorati Tags: Hack, Tech

International Geocaching Day – August 18th

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Jul 272012

The 18th of August is International Geocaching day. This is a great excuse to take kids/friends out on an adventure into your surroundings. I found that you discover a lot of new and unexpected things about the neighbourhood you live in, the area you work or basically whereabouts you are (holidays…).

For those unaware what Geocaching is, here’s a short explanation:

Geocaching is a modern version of the treasure hunt. People hide “treasures” or Geocaches and mark them on a website (for example: geocaching.com).

Then, other participants, who don’t know the exact location of the Geocache use a GPS device to find it. Geocaches can be anything in contents and in size, but usually include a log, where you add your details when you found it.

The Geocaching.com website has a huge collection of caches and a very active community (approx 7 million log entries in the last 30 days!) that will help you get started and be ready for the 18th of August. Have a look at their calendar to see if there is something going on the 18th around you!

Technorati Tags: Geocaching, GPS, Outdoors

Raspberry Pi Cases, Continued

Hacks, My Projects - DIY, Technologies 2 Responses »

Jul 092012

There’s quite some movement on the Raspberry-Pi case topic since I last posted one which was based on a Marlboro cigarette case for sale in EBay.

Since the Raspberry Pi is a real DIY / Hacker or Maker type mini-pc, it is not surprising that it started blooming case designs all over the place.

Here are a few examples of what’s been made. There’s ideas for each level of handy-ness or equipment availability:

On the Blog of CGPatterson, there is a good description (and downloadable templates) to build a casing out of a sheet of transparent film. It won’t be your most chock and break proof solution, but it is one of the cheapest and easiest option found out there.

A similar idea but made with cardboard called the Punnet, can be found here

If the only material you own is a box of LEGOs you might want to give that a shot. A quick google shows that there are many people who built a casing for the Raspberry Pi with LEGO. Here is an example from BBMaj on the raspberry Pi Boards:

Since Plexiglas is a material witch you can relatively easily cut with a normal saw machine, this is probably the next model on the list. On the Blog WaitingForFriday.com, you’ll find a nice tutorial on how to build a case out of Plexiglas, without the need for any expensive machinery.

If you do have access to a laser cutter, here are a couple if designs that you might want to give a try:

On Built-to-spec.com, they have instructions for a casing that will make your Pi look like a proper Desktop computer. Why..? Don’t know. It does look very well thought and it might give you some extra space inside for any extensions you’d like to give it.

Raspberry Pi Enclosure

Last but definitively not least, on the blog pages of Thingist.com, you can find another laser cutted casing that looks really good because the wood inlays give it a really finished touch.

Loads of other good ideas can be found. Like the Raspberry Pi hidden in a PC Keyboard or a Nintendo cartridge. if you found any nice ones feel free to add to the comments.

Technorati Tags: Case Mod, Hack, Raspberry Pi

Google Science Fair 2012 Teams Up With Mindstorms

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Mar 162012

This year, Google’s science fair teams up with LEGO Mindstorms. The Google Science fair, although limited to the younger among us, always generates a great list of good and innovative ideas.

This year, sponsored by LEGO Mindstorms, we will hopefully see some more applications of Mindstorms in the field of science. Sign up is ending the end of this month (for all you that are, or have kids that are between 14 and 18 years old).

There are some really nice projects and videos with background information from this one and previous Science Fairs, on the Science Fair Youtube channel.

Technorati Tags: LEGO, Mindstorms, Robots and Robotics, science

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